The Neon
by Juniorstarcatcher
Summary: A young Obi-Wan is forced to examine his devotion to his vows one night at a bordello in the Coruscant underworld.


The lights of the bordello are blinding, and Obi-Wan feels much as he did that first morning of Padawan training, staring up with wide, uncertain eyes as a world of possibilities spin around within him. Odd, he thinks how two such fundamentally opposing events can stir up such similar emotions within him. Back then, he was seeking to take an oath; now, he is on the verge of breaking one.

No, he reminds himself for what seems like the thousandth time this hour. Not breaking his vows. Merely… Exercising their elasticity. After all, it was Qui-Gonn who pointed out that the Jedi are not required to maintain celibacy. They are only required to keep themselves free of attachment and possession, and if there was a place where Obi-Wan could maintain those two vows, it is here, this Coruscant bordello is it.

Standing in a shadowed alley across the street from the screaming siren of a building that is this testament to the bought and sold, his face completely obscured by the hood of his cloak, Obi-Wan steels himself for what he is about to do, watching as the men and women who are at once the salesmen and product of this institution call out crudely to the passerby, and listening as the music snakes its way insidiously out from the bordello, directly into Obi-Wan's ears. His stomach twists. The vows he has made are all he has; he wouldn't go back on them for anything the galaxies have to offer, but the anticipation for what he is about to do sends his mind racing. And intoxicated, perhaps, by the harsh glare of the brilliant neon lights advertising this business' wares, Obi-Wan crosses the street, and slides in through the door without being noticed by any of the seedy characters traipsing the Coruscant underworld at this time of night.

Once he's through the door, it is as if everything is heightened and blurred all in the same breath. The Force steadies him, and he reaches out with it in order to understand the myriad of sights and sounds that assault him from that very first moment. A Kaminoan and an Imperial Senator fraternize in a corner, laughing loudly at something a bartender has just said. Two musicians wail on their instruments wildly, as men and women for hire dance around them with lurid and tipsy steps. Food is plentiful. Liquor is pouring freely. Obi-Wan does not release his hood, nor does he move his hand from its place on his lightsaber, not even when a thick-skinned, heavily painted Roonan sidles up beside him, sweeping her hand up in the direction of the grand staircase.

"That's where the real fun is, weary traveler," she says, with a wink and a nudge toward the stairs, "Try door number nine."

Obi-Wan nods once, sharp and stoic, before heading single-mindedly up the stairs. His hands are shaking, but his footwork is impeccable, each step unfaltering as it ascends to the second floor. Reaching out with the force, he searches for what he is looking for, unsure just what it is that he is searching for, but knowing that he will know it once he finds it. Much to his dismay, he finds himself standing outside of Room Nine, which seems to radiate something…peaceful? Whatever it is, this is the only area of this entire bordello that departs from the frantic, dizzying energy of the rest of the building, and thus it seems to call out to him. Raising a hand and curling it gently, he knocks three times. The Force shudders, a twinge of nervousness that radiates from inside of the room, but the voice that reaches his ears sounds devoid of fear.

"Enter."

Without hesitation, Obi-Wan does as he's told, pushing his way into the room. Closing the door behind him, the young Jedi's eyes adjust to the sudden change in light, and his mind recalibrates itself to take in the sudden lack of sound. Darkness surrounds him, and quiet hushes over the room. A few light sculptures hung around the room, giving out dim glows, and an air recycler hums in the corner, but beyond that, it's stillness and darkness. From the minimal light, he can make out the simple amenities that someone of such a life might need. The door to a washroom. A window overlooking the street. A storage closet. And, of course, a bed. Obi-Wan's eyes linger there for a moment, but eventually trail back to the window, where a figure is staring pensively through the glass, her human figure covered in a loose-fitting robe and nothing else. Her hair tumbles, unbound, down her neck, and her fingers toy idly with one of the wooden toggles holding the robe together, keeping her body's secrets. The light radiating from the street illuminates her face just enough that he can watch her eyes trace the outline of the neon outside of her window; she looks pensive, he notes, but not unsure. It grants him a measure of peace. They remain in just that way for a while, nothing between them but vague, distant light and air. Then, she speaks.

"Aren't you going to say something?" She asks, her eyes not wandering from their trained focus on what lies outside.

Obi-Wan doesn't move from his perfectly still position, does not feel himself spook at her sudden speech. Instead, he continues his unabashed appraisal of her figure. No waif by any stretch of the imagination, her figure fills out the draping robe with the grace of a crashing wave, her lines round and abrupt, the ripples on her young face whispering secrets she would never utter aloud. The woman, who cannot be more than Obi-Wan's mere 21 years, allows him to survey her, standing without moving for his better observation. She convinces herself that she does this out of defiance, that she refuses to move out of some sort of bravery, that her stillness and decision to remain at the farthest point in the room from the bed are a strong signal to this man about the sort of woman he's about to purchase. But, if she is honest with herself, she knows that isn't the truth at all. If honesty is a game she is interested in playing, then she would admit that she stays frozen in place because she doesn't know what to do with herself. Movement seems absurd, uncomfortable in any way that she can conjure up in her mind. The reflection of a cloaked figure ripples in the window out of which she is looking, and she wonders idly and selfishly what lies beneath the shadows obscuring his face.

"Does the man in my position usually begin this exchange?" Obi-Wan asks, almost amused.

They are at a physical stalemate, neither inching closer toward the other, neither taking control of the situation. Her robe gently waving to the tune of the air recycler, the woman is too steely fragile, too tremulous and proud to move, while Obi-Wan finds it impossible to overcome his the indecision about this entire situation.

"I wouldn't know," the young woman says before she can think better of it.

This catches Obi-Wan off-guard, his mind hitching at this assertion. Instantly suspicious of anything that can so simply give him cause to pause, he raises an eyebrow slightly, his body stiffening minutely beneath his robes.

"Oh?" He prompts.

For the first time since walking through the door, the young Jedi watches a flicker of emotion pass over the woman's face. It is a thread of indecision, of doubt, that resounds quickly through the Force surrounding her. She winces, but only for the briefest second, before composing her face into its stoic mask once again, her unimpressed gaze returning to the window. She wonders if she should answer his question, but knows that evading would be pointless.

"I've not done this before," she says, her voice only a whisper louder than the sounds hushing through the room.

If she were inclined closer toward him, if her face were only slightly more visible, then he would see that honesty echoing within them; they would strike him with a brutality and ferocity the likes of which no suffering eyes have ever betrayed to him. He would have seen that this confession is an sincere one, not just conjured up to create for him an illusion of virginal perfection that most men pay for when they come to the Bordello. He would see the truth. But, her face is turned away from him, and so he sees only the devised illusion that he conjures up in his mind, and thus speaks harsher than she deserves.

"How many times have you said that, I wonder," he drawls with something of a sigh, his eyes wandering from her shadow as he readjusts his weight to his left side.

Slowly, the woman turns her head until she is staring down the hooded figure standing just inside of her threshold. His unabashed accusation comes as no surprise to her; it does not even strike her as painful. But she does bristle, her voice tensing though her eyes remain soft.

"You think I am a liar as well as a prostitute," she says, her voice easy, almost conversational.

It is this easy tone of voice that calls Obi-Wan to the wounded look in her eye. Eyes which, he now notes, are nothing of any great consequence. No odd coloring or special distinction. It does occur to him that they carry a special sort of light in them, a light constructed of contradictions and paradoxes, of depths and shallows, of gravities and levities, of even lights and darks themselves. It's a minor revelation, but a striking one. Centering himself formally, he straightens his spine and swallows hard; the superior edge in his tone vanishes, and once more he feels himself slip into his humanity, stepping away from the patronizing attitude he carried only a moment ago.

"I apologize," he begins, his voice reaching out to her like a hand toward a wounded animal. At the sound of such an apology, the young woman then graces him with her entire attention, surprise not even hidden from her face. Obi-Wan continues, his head bowed, "I spoke hastily. I did not come here to talk down to you."

Thus ends the woman's surprise. With a shake of her head, she tucks away her disappointment, and masks it with a determinedly bitter twitch of her lips. If motions of the body is a language all its own, then to call this a smile would be a massive translation error.

"No. Your mind is on other things," she says.

Unable to keep it locked in his chest, Obi-Wan chokes out a laugh, the absurdity of this farce finally hitting him. A rookie courtesan and an honor-bound Jedi meet in the back room of a bordello. It's the beginning of some sort of dirty joke, isn't it?

"Yes. I suppose it is," Obi-Wan concedes, a small smile gracing his lips, though the woman doesn't get the satisfaction of such a sight, as the shadows still cloak his face.

Fabric around her body swishing effortlessly as wind through fresh leaves, the courtesan strides across the room, resigning herself to her duties in this room. During her training, what little they gave to her, considering the Madame of this establishment assured her that it was as natural to a woman as breathing, they reminded her that some men would seek the game. They would hesitate and ramble and argue with themselves, but at the end of their time, they would want what they came here for. She takes control of the situation, descending to the edge of her bed with an almost regal flair, before crossing one leg over the other, letting her exposed foot swing like a tantalizing pendulum, giving the man across from her a glimpse of the bare flesh of her leg. Just as she predicted, his head inclines itself downward toward her skin, and even without intimate knowledge of the details of his face, she knows that he has taken the bait.

"So, what is your pleasure?" She asks.

The Jedi coughs, the combination of her blunt phrasing and compromising position on the bed causing his mind to stutter.

"That's an abrupt question," Obi-Wan says.

She merely shrugs, leaning back against the lush blankets of the bed to rest on her elbows, her chin cocked to one side. The boldness she exudes for the moment is a wonderful play, and she hopes the power of it is enough to convince this man before her that she is as strong as she wants to feel.

"This is not a house of romance," she says, as thought it is the most obvious of facts that she could give to him, which, maybe, it is.

Reaching out with his feelings, the Jedi encounters something disturbing, something he could have not have anticipated in a lifetime of searching. Recoiling momentarily, his forehead furrows, and he watches her watching him.

"I sense your are afraid," he says, his tone tinged with that confusion wracking his mind, his eyes narrowing, "Are you afraid of me?"

In any other situation, from any other mouth, the young woman might have taken such a question as an insult, a leer thrown her way to intimidate her, to make her feel small in his presence. To her supreme surprise, however, the voice is genuinely curious, and even, if she were so bold as to consider herself one worth his thoughts, concerned. Looking up at him from the thick of her eyelashes, the woman's red, painted lips tilting upward on one side.

"I think you know the answer to that," she hitches her sentence for a moment, looking at him pointedly before finishing with a flair, "_Master_ _Jedi_."

It isn't often that Obi-Wan is caught off guard by anything, but he is unable to hide the shock from registering on his face. He took every precaution and sought out a brothel with the highest level of discretion. Traveled in the dead of night and never once showed his features to the outside world. Aside from wearing his lightsaber, which was well-hidden on his belt, beneath his flowing cape, there should have been nothing to distinguish him from any other man coming into this building for service. He reels back, stepping a few steps in reverse, glaring at her with what looks like preparation for a fight.

"How did you-?" He begins.

She holds up a single hand to halt his words, her face still betraying amusement.

"Remove your hood and cloak," she commands.

Not so easily swayed, Obi-Wan shakes his head.

"Answer my question," he replies, his entire body prepared to strike, should the occasion call for it; has he just fallen into a trap?

No, it appears he hasn't. For the young woman chuckles, not maliciously, not menacingly, but bemusedly. That dull sheen to her eyes glows brighter in this moment than it has yet, and the tension from her body seems to evaporate, now that all of her cards are on the table. Relaxing her suggestive stance on the bed, she speaks frankly.

"You weren't very subtle. Your force presence is obtrusive. Not to mention the fact that your hand hasn't let go of your lightsaber since walking through that door," Obi-Wan's hand immediately retreats from its place on the handle of his lightsaber, holding his arms up in a sign of surrender, knowing that his judgement of her has been hasty. His muscles, too, uncoil themselves from their wound-up, battle-ready positions. She watches him decompress, and then continues with an upward tilt of her chin, "Now. Remove your hood and cloak."

Obi-Wan considers his options for a moment, rubbing them over with him mind as though they are stains to be scrubbed out from the hem of his robe. But, eventually, his calm, still hands raise to either side of his hood, his fingers curving around the fabric there, and, slowly, he lowers it from his face, finally subjecting the woman in the bed to the full impact of his visage. The young Jedi then stands at attention without moving or thinking too loudly, to give her the opportunity to assess him in the way he was unashamedly assessing her from the moment he walked in the room.

It is an opportunity that she takes, allowing her gaze to trace the sharp angles and edges of his solemn face. He looks off into the corner of the room, not managing to look directly at her, but she finds this an even more startling effect, a more effective display of his character. She could say any number of things about him, could comment on his looks, on his mannerisms. But, she doesn't. To the contrary, she picks up on a solitary flicker of his eyes, a moment where they swivel from his place not he wall back to her, and withdraws a novel of information and uneducated guesses from it, before recondensing the information and uneducated guesses into a manageable morsel.

"You look troubled, Master Jedi," she observes.

Obi-Wan evades the question, shaking his head.

"I'm not a Master," he replies.

The truth is, he is not even a Jedi at all, not _really_. He still has to endure his Trials, which Qui-Gon vaguely yet earnestly assures him are in his near future. But he will not correct her, for he thinks of himself as a Jedi, and therefore, a Jedi he is.

"Not yet," she says, not missing a beat.

One look at him, and there is not even a momentary lapse in her confidence in his inevitable rise to the ranks of a Jedi Knight. Everything about him tells her this; it isn't in anything he does, but rather is written in everything that he _is. _And she knows that Jedi, especially not _this _Jedi, is going to go through with what he came here for. That much, she can read from the blatant emotional edge she watches him try so desperately to hide from her.

"But you are troubled," she says, raising an eyebrow in what almost feels like a playful gesture, "Would you like for me to tell you why?"

"I don't think that's in your job description," Obi-Wan mutters, folding his arms across his chest.

At this affront, the woman releases her hold on the top of her robe, allowing the curtains of material to part and reveal a window of flesh down the center of her body. And while it may be considered predatory, or aggressive, she merely thinks of the gesture as a confident calling of his bluff.

"Well, then. Would you like to begin the business of my job description, then?" She croons, knowing the answer before she even asks the question.

The young Jedi balks, causing the woman to chuckle.

"I thought not," she says, shaking her head as she fastens the robe back into place, then waving her fingers in a mockery of a mystical gesture, proceeding to tell him what she thinks of him, "I believe that you are troubled because of your vows, Master Jedi. You fear that by paying for me, you have come close to owning me. Thus breaking the vow of possession. And you fear that by engaging with me here that you might break the vow of attachment. You fear that you are dangerously close to rebelling against the Order."

Well, this was certainly not how Obi-Wan expected this to go. Knowing she is right, but unable to admit it, he merely speaks with the diplomacy that he's been taught is so important.

"I have confidence in my devotion to the Order and my vows," he says.

And he means that. Not once has Obi-Wan ever questioned himself; his destiny is clear and as palpable to him as the room around him. He will be a Jedi Knight, honest and true, a defender of peace and a trustee of The Force. All the same, there is a hesitance that blows through the air around his body, radiating from somewhere deep and hidden within him; it is the feeling of this wind that gives the prostitute a reason to doubt even his most stoic and sincere statements.

"So, I am wrong, then?" She questions, fishing for an answer she already knows.

Feeling suddenly stifled, Obi Wan reaches for his hood, turning toward the door with a shake of his head.

"I think it was a mistake to come here," he rumbles.

For the first time, a rush of desperation fills the room, lashing out to strike at Obi-Wan's chest. The woman shoots up from the bed, reaching out her body so that her fingers curl around the edges of his robes, holding him tightly enough to stop in his tracks. He looks over his shoulder at her, her expression afeared.

"Please don't leave," she says, though Obi-Wan is unsure if it is a plea or a command.

There is a question in his eyes, and she releases her hold on him, straightening her spine and brushing imagined dust from the front of her own robe. With a cough of discomfort, she attempts to explain away her distress.

"I could get in trouble if I haven't-"

_Performed. _That is the unspoken end to that defense. If he were to leave now, so soon, then everyone would suspect her of not pleasing him, which could lead to disastrous, even painful, consequences. At the pulsating throb of her fear through The Force, Obi-Wan softens, rolling away his stone and sighing, nodding once before turning back toward her completely.

"Right. Of course," he says, his head bowed as he walks toward the nearest chair, content to sit in silence until his time here is up, if only to save her from a sound beating.

"Would you like a drink?" she asks, that bravado evaporating from her voice.

He nods and she sets about to the small end table where a bottle of something unidentifiable waits beside two glasses. For the price these women make, Obi-Wan would have expected something grander, he thinks as he looks around the room once more. For the most part, it is terribly bear. Sad, even. But he doesn't have long to mull over this thought, as through the walls comes the sound of someone in the room beside hers coming to climax, the sounds of debauchery reaching a crescendo, as the man who has paid for this moment screams out, "I love you" in the heat of his passion. Shaking her head, the woman whom Obi-Wan has paid for tisks, handing the man sitting in her chair his drink.

"What a fool," she mutters, referring to the loud man next door.

Unwillingly to reach out and search _that _man's feelings, the young Jedi takes the glass from her hand and takes a sip, giving the excited man next door the benefit of the doubt.

"Perhaps he is just letting his emotions get the better of him," he says diplomatically.

Returning to her place on the foot of the bed, she takes a long sip from the drink she's holding in her hand, the cool, clear water sliding down her throat soothingly. She cried herself to sleep last night; the gulps of water are comforting against the ache in the back of her mouth.

"And what would you know of it?" She asks, swallowing hard but speaking light.

The muscles in his shoulders relax back against the chair and Obi-Wan allows himself a chuckle, looking at the cup in his hands.

"Nothing. The Jedi are forbidden from love," he says.

"Wrong," she replies, almost immediately.

Obi-Wan nearly chokes on his water.

"Wrong?" He questions.

She nods. This is a conversation that she has been preparing for her entire life. A fire pulses in her blood and Obi-Wan watches her with an amused look.

"Yes, wrong," she repeats, astutely, "What is a Jedi? What do they do? They are Peacekeepers. They spend their entire lives learning the ways of the Force so that they might manipulate it, use this one, all-connecting lifeline to save people. You are saviors, you Jedi. You are called to love. It is the role of the Jedi to be engulfed by love, but not consumed by it."

And then, almost as if embarrassed by her sudden outburst, she looks, long and deeply into her cup, before muttering,

"No, Master Jedi. It is the prostitute, not the Jedi, who is in the business of not loving."

Her impassioned speech catches the man off guard, leaving him almost breathlessly perplexed in its wake. There are so many things he wants to say to her, so many discussions to have and questions to ask and confusions to riddle, but, for the first moment since he walked in the door, Obi-Wan isn't thinking about himself, isn't thinking about his insecurity or his apprehension. For the first time, he's thinking about her, and the fact that she keeps calling him Master, when really he is as lost as she is.

"Obi-Wan," he corrects.

No more of this _Master Jedi_ talk, he hopes. He's simply Obi-Wan. The woman in the robe nods once, looking off at some knot in the floor.

"Obi-Wan," she repeats, tasting the words as they pass over her lips.

It's a nice name, she thinks to herself as it rolls around in her mind, like a dice of new information. Nice enough to be a Jedi, at least. Humble and grand all at once.

"And you are?" Obi-Wan asks, extending a hand in invitation.

Scoffing, she takes a long sip from her drink.

"The woman you will forget come morning," she replies.

Obi-Wan levels with her, lowering his voice to something human and hopeful, softening himself, in a vain attempt to endear himself to her. This has been a tragedy of a night; the least he could walk away with is the name of the woman he's been dancing circles around.

"I would like to know your name," he says, more of a wish than an order.

She sighs and says it. Her real name. Not a false one given out to customers, not an alias. Just her name, plain and simple as it has been since the day she was born.

"Carda."

Not anywhere as quietly regal or brazenly humble as Obi-Wan, but he enjoys the sound of it all the same.

"Carda," he says, repeating her name just as she repeated his before pausing for a moment, unsure if he should ask this question, but throwing caution to the wind anyway, "You're force-sensitive, aren't you?"

Carda's heart stops, hesitating in her chest. Obi-Wan may be mistaken, but finds himself almost certain that she looks expectant, like he's about to tell her something she's waited her whole life to hear.

"What…What makes you say that?" She stumbles out, placing her cup on the floor and crossing her arms over her chest.

"You said my Force presence was obtrusive. How did you know that?"

If she looked hopeful the moment before, it's all gone now. She deflates under his answer, and rises to her feet, crossing the room with small, sad steps until she's standing over Obi-Wan's seated figure. Hands reaching up to the long waves of hair falling down past her shoulder blades, she moves the locks to one side of her neck, revealing a length of skin from the top of her ear to the top seam of her robe's back line. The skin is marred there, something is ingrained into it. In the darkness, it takes Obi-Wan a moment to decode what it is, exactly, that he's looking for, but by the time he realizes, she's already speaking. It's a tattoo. A force tattoo.

"I was a member of a Force cult. I spent my childhood developing my sensitivity, learning all there was to know about the Jedi way. When I was old enough, a Jedi Master came and found me."

Obi-Wan has heard of these Force cults; on occasion, their intensive, life-draining training does garner up actual results by way of force-sensitivity. These provincial colonists on the outer edges of the galaxy revere the Jedi order and their powers as god-like, and attempt to rear their children in ways that ensure they will grow up to be Jedi. When a child doesn't succeed, they're often ostracized, cast away. Obi-Wan wonders which path she took to get where she is today.

"You were at the Temple, then?" Obi-Wan asks, hoping that she was brought to the Temple and left rather than the alternative of being cast out of her tribe for failure to become fully realized in the ways of the Force.

"No," she says with a decisive shake of her head, the memory swimming in her eyes, "I was deemed too weak in the Force. She left without me, and my clan began to look at me like a piece of broken machinery."

To this moment, Carda can still recall the feeling of their disappointment hanging over her shoulders where she believed that a Jedi's robe would hang. Instead of a mantle of glory, of honor, she carried around nothing but shame.

A shame that Obi-Wan witnesses firsthand now. It radiates through the force like poisoned air, filling his lungs and turning his stomach. But, there is something else besides shame. There is a vision, a prophecy of another life that might have been, had things gone differently. He sees Carda arriving a few days after him in Coruscant, smiling at him with gapped teeth, the tattoo on her neck glowing delightfully with the concentration of Force energy in the Temple. He sees them training side-by-side, their actions praised by Master Yoda. Master Qui-Gon praises them for their harmonious work on a mission to Tython. They become Masters together. Train padawans of their own together. Join the Counsel together.

Another life. A life that could have been. All at once, it fulfills and hollows Obi-Wan.

"How did you come to be here, then?" He asks.

Knowing that he can probably guess on his own, but not wanting to draw him into her pit of despair, she fills in the gaps, drawing lines through the obscurity into clarity, bringing him along with her through the sludge with a very simple, very sad sentence.

"There aren't many ways for a girl to make it to Coruscant from the Outer Rim," Carda says.

It dawns on Obi-Wan suddenly, striking him like lightning.

"You sold yourself into slavery," he concludes.

"I have only made the decisions I wanted to. I need no rescuing from a fate of my own design," Carda says, dismissing the look of pity that shines all around him.

Obi-Wan furrows his brow.

"But why? Why come all the way to Coruscant-" He asks, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

She holds a hand up for him to stop speaking; this answer, too, should be very obvious, but she will save him the trouble of having to look at what is right in front of him.

"There's only one Jedi Temple. And it's on this rock right here."

"Oh," Obi-Wan replies.

Carda walks away from him, her hair falling back over her tattoo, the old familiar sting of that brand suddenly too visible for her to bear. She pulls back the curtains and looks out, seeing nothing really, but dreaming of a place where The Force runs like air through her lungs and where the title of Master is just within her fingertips.

"One day, when I free myself, and I will free myself, I will see the Temple with my own eyes," she says.

And when it happens, she knows that all of this will be worth it. Obi-Wan has no doubt that she's telling the truth. One day, she will see the temple with her own eyes.

"I believe you," he replies.

It's as sweet a statement as anyone has ever given her. She smiles genuinely, her heart suddenly very warm indeed.

"That's time," comes a voice from outside the door, banging his fist three times.

Obi-Wan swallows back hard and calls over his shoulder.

"One moment," he implores.

He crosses the room and gently touches Carda's shoulders, turning her toward him. His fingers brush out to touch the porcelain skin of her jawline, bringing her in for a chaste kiss. It only lasts a breath and inspires no real passion in either of them, but, for the first time, Obi-Wan feels drunk off of another person. Her lips inspire his smile.

"So, that's what that feels like," Obi-Wan mutters, smiling.

She steps away from him, her smile not faltering as she teases the young Jedi.

"I hope it was worth the credits," she says with a nod.

Obi-Wan begins for the door, but stops just as he's about to leave. He turns, and begs her to come with him, to run away from this and to let him protect her.

"I can get you out of here-" He begins.

But she isn't having that. That isn't her destiny, and they both know it.

"Don't insult me by offering something so easy. The life of a Jedi is struggle, is it not?"

She isn't a Jedi. She will never be a Jedi. But, Jedi is what she thinks of herself, so Jedi she will always be. Obi-Wan closes his eyes once in defeated concession, before bowing once to her with a pensive smile.

"I look forward to seeing you at the Temple," Obi-wan intones.

He's gone before he can hear her whispered reply.

"And I you, Obi-Wan."


End file.
